Kitchen make over, living room extension, roof and ceiling replacements, doors and windows replacement, and home repainting can cost thousands of dollars. If you don’t have enough money to finance any of these, you can always count on mortgage loan.

While you can always apply on the first lender you can see online, getting the best home improvement loan rate would take more work than that.

To get started, here are the things you should do:

Know how much money you need. Say your kitchen improvement would cost $15,000 and you already have $5,000 on hand, what you should be looking for is a lender that would let you borrow at least $10,000. Simple math right? But finding a lender that will let you borrow this amount is easy; getting the best home improvement rate that is easy to pay is entirely a different story.

Home improvement loan rate depends on different criteria. And two of the most important factors that would affect your rate are your credit history and the amount of your equity.

Credit history influences the interest rate of your loan. It is important that you have a good credit score. Generally, if a person has a good credit score, he or she can receive a lower rate. A person with bad credit score on the other hand can get the same loan at a higher interest rate.

The amount of your equity determines the amount of your loan. Your equity is computed by subtracting the value of your home to the mortgage or the amount you owe at your bank.

Having a bad credit score would not remove your chances of getting the best home improvement loan rate. What you should do is to search for different lenders that would offer you the best rate under bad credit rating. This also applies if you have a good credit score. In short, whether you have a good or bad credit rating, you need to search thoroughly to find the best rate for your specific need.